Page 55 – Defense Daily

Air Force Secretary Nominee Plans Comprehensive Review Of Modernization And Readiness

If confirmed as secretary of the Air Force, Troy Meink will undertake a review of the service’s modernization and readiness needs and costs, he told a Senate panel on Thursday.

The Air Force is modernizing or assessing modernization needs across its core mission areas, including fighter aircraft, and the bomber and ICBM legs of the nuclear triad, so “One of the first things I plan to do is take a holistic look at all of the modernization and all the readiness bills that we have coming, and then I will put together and advocate for what resources I think are necessary to execute all of those missions,” Meink told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing.

The review will look at the numbers of platforms the Air Force needs and how fast they are needed to support active duty and reserve units, Meink said. The review will include the planned number of fighter aircraft versus overall requirements, and the resources to acquire F-35 fighters, maintain fourth generation fighters like the F-15E, and transition to the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) manned fighter and related unmanned systems, he said.

Meink said his review with Air Force leaders would include the number of B-21s needed. The current program calls for 100 of the stealth bombers, which are in low-rate production by Northrop Grumman [NOC], although U.S. Strategic Command has signaled a need for 145 of the aircraft.

“I understand the B-21 program is currently meeting its goals, we should look carefully at the total numbers of the long-term bomber force, comprised of B-21s and modernized B-52s,” he wrote.
Meink said he has not received a detailed briefing yet on NGAD but said it will be a focus area of his, noting that the unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft and other unmanned systems, and the “integration of those different type of platforms with ISR and other capabilities” will be required to deter aggressors.

The Air Force last week selected Boeing [BA] to develop and build the F-47, which is the manned NGAD (Defense Daily, March 21).

As for fourth generation aircraft, Meink told the committee in written responses to policy questions before the hearing that these fighters will be important “in all but the densest and most advanced threat environments around the world.” The closer the threat gets to China, fifth generation fighters become more important, he wrote.

Still as fourth generation aircraft age and newer fighters are produced, the continual shift to fifth generation fighters will be necessary as threats grow, and to “efficiently and effectively manage readiness and sustainment over the coming decades,” he wrote.

Asked ahead of the hearing about the current size, structure and resourcing of the Air Force, Meink answered that based on “open-source reporting,” the service is smaller and older than it has ever been, highlighting his concern with some fleets having mission capable rates of about 50 percent. Meink will work with Congress to fill any shortfalls, he wrote.

Meink also in his advance answers outlined three significant challenges he would face as Air Force secretary. “First is the need for resilient space architectures,” which includes leveraging commercial industry “as much as possible, buying what we can and only building what we absolutely must,” he wrote.

Currently deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which builds and operates high-end remote sensing satellites and acquires imagery and sensing data from commercial providers, Meink told the panel he expects commercial space companies will continue to play a growing role, adding he will take lessons learned from his NRO role to the Air Force if confirmed.

“Widely proliferated space capabilities that leverage commercial industry deny our adversaries any ‘first-mover’ advantage and thus have a deterrent effect on conflict in the space domain,” he wrote.

The second challenge facing the Air Force is “auditability,” Meink said. Here, Meink said he would rely on his experience at NRO and the use of artificial intelligence to strengthen controls.

Maintaining the Air Force’s technological edge over near-peer adversaries is the third challenge, he cited. This requires shortening acquisition cycles and prioritizing resources against the biggest threats, he wrote.

Embraer Sees Significant Market in United States

LISBON, Portugal–Brazil’s Embraer is looking to make significant inroads in the U.S. market, particularly with the company’s KC-390 jet tanker/transport.

“We see how turboprop aircraft struggle to refuel fast jets,” Frederico Lemos, the chief commercial officer of Embraer Defense & Security, told reporters here on Wednesday. “It’s tough for them to be flying at 30,000 plus feet and coming down to 20,000 to refuel at very low speed makes them more susceptible to attacks at the lower altitude, and then burning a lot of fuel coming back to 30,000 feet. So why refuel with the turboprop? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Embraer had been developing a boom with

L3Harris Technologies [LHX] for the KC-390, but the uncertain future for the U.S. Air Force tanking fleet contributed to L3Harris pulling out last October, and Embraer is looking for new partners on the boom project. Embraer and L3Harris had started their boom development in 2022 as part of a range of refueling options, including a remote system, for the KC-390 to allow the plane to offload 75,000 pounds of fuel (Defense Daily, Sept. 19, 2022).

“We are confident that we can have a boom solution in the 390,” Lemos said on Wednesday.

Boeing [BA] KC-46 Pegasus jet tankers are supplementing the U.S. Air Force fleet of the Boeing KC-135, which entered service in 1957, as the Air Force looks to the future Next Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS).

As the Air Force finishes an Analysis of Alternatives for NGAS–a possibly stealthy tanker–the service is considering runway size, fuel carriage for long-range missions, and the need for tanker stealth (Defense Daily, March 6).

Among the 42 KC-390 buys so far are 19 for Brazil, 5 for Portugal, 5 for the Netherlands, four for Austria, three for South Korea, two for Hungary, and two for the Czech Republic.

The KC-390’s Eaton Corp. [ETN] wing refueling pod supports probe-and-drogue “basket” tanking, and the aircraft is also to support aerial assault/paratrooper, special operations, cargo, and firefighting missions.

The KC-390’s standard Eaton pod is compatible “with all the Navy assets in the U.S.,” Lemos said. “Of course, in Europe a lot of fighters are basket-compatible– the Eurofighter, the Rafale, the Gripen. For the U.S. we did some studies. Like 40 percent of the demand is baskets to support the Navy. It [the KC-390] is ready to support that, and it can also support rotary wing. We can fly 110 to 130 knots to support low-flying rotary platforms.”

About half of the systems on the KC-390 are U.S. ones, including Collins Aerospace [RTX] avionics and the Pratt & Whitney [RTX] combustor/two-stage air-cooled high pressure turbine for the aircraft’s IAE V2500 engine.

Army Official Sees ‘Cheaper, ‘Quicker’ Path To Autonomous Launcher With Industry Concept

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – An Army official leading long-range fires development said Wednesday industry has demonstrated a promising concept that could offer a “cheaper,” “quicker” path to getting after an autonomous launcher, citing an interest in having such solutions participate in the Transforming in Contact (TiC) initiative.

Brig. Gen. Rory Crooks, director of the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team, said the Army is interested in building on its own work developing the Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher (AML) concept to further bolster capacity, survivability and range capability.

An Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher experiments with Direct Support Fire Technology during Project Convergence-Capstone 5 on Fort Irwin, Calif. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Bobbi-Jo McGinley)

“It wasn’t until we had an industry partner that…developed their own [autonomous launcher] with their own [internal research and development] that showed us we can probably do this a little bit quicker than we thought we could and maybe cheaper,” Crooks said in remarks at AUSA’s Global Force Symposium here.

Crooks told Defense Daily following his remarks he could not disclose the vendor that showcased its solution at the Army’s recent Project Convergence experiment, while noting that several companies have made advancements in the autonomous launcher space.

“They came out with a pretty simply, cost-effective [solution] that we’re interested in,” Crooks said. “They’re not the only one. We’re also talking to other vendors that are proposing their own versions of this. So that’s what’s exciting, we can do this fairly fast because industry’s already leaning into it.”

RTX’s [RTX] Raytheon recently demonstrated its new DeepStrike autonomous launcher at Project Convergence, which included teaming with Oshkosh Defense [OSK] to utilize its Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) A2 as the base for the platform and self-driving technology startup Forterra contributing the autonomy kits that utilizes its AutoDrive software (Defense Daily, March 25).

Raytheon fired its offering for the Joint Reduced Range Rocket (JR3) program, which utilizes a rocket motor developed by Ursa Major, during the demonstration, and Brian Burton, the company’s vice president of precision fires and maneuver, told Defense Daily on Wednesday that DeepStrike is designed to be “effector agnostic.”

Burton, a day prior, said Raytheon received “incredibly positive” feedback on the DeepStrike demo.

Crooks said the Army is also keeping an eye on the Marine Corps’ developments in the autonomous launcher space.

The Marine Corps has been moving out on the ROGUE-Fires program which takes an unmanned version of Oshkosh Defense’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and integrates a ground launcher on the chassis, and in January awarded Forterra a $29.9 million award to bring self-driving capability to the platform (Defense Daily, Jan. 13).

Oshkosh Defense, at the Global Force Symposium, is showcasing for the first time the ROGUE-Fires platform with a launch pod for the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Family of Munitions (MFOM).

The Army has spent several years developing and working with its own AML concept, a modified, unmanned version of the HIMARS launcher capable of firing the MLRS Family of Munitions.

“Basically with one step with autonomy, we think we’ve addressed three of those deficits in range, capacity and survivability,” Crooks told attendees at the Global Force Symposium. “When you have an autonomous system and use that for your first strike capability, now you have the ability to offload some of that risk from the counter-battery. So you have an autonomous vehicle that will help you with the survivability aspect.”

Crooks said the Army “absolutely [has] a desire” to get AML involved with TiC 2.0, with the Army expanding the rapid fielding initiative and placing an increased emphasis on autonomy capabilities

“We’ve got senior leaders looking for options right now of what we can do to pursue and get in the next 24 months AML out to those TiC 2.0 formations. We’re looking hard at that right now. I think there’s a lot of opportunity. So I’m optimistic we will have that,” Crooks said.

The Army’s TiC effort, spearheaded by Gen. Randy George, the service’s chief of staff, has focused on testing new operating concepts with select Army units and providing troops with new technology, such as drones and electronic warfare capabilities, to gather feedback and inform rapid fielding decisions.

With TiC 2.0 the Army is expanding the effort to two more divisions, two Armored Brigade Combat Teams, two Stryker Brigade Combat Teams as well as the service’s three Multi-Domain Task Forces and Special Operations Forces units, with plans to spend over $1 billion the next two years on fielding 1,110 UAS, more than 250 EW systems, over 2,000 mobility platforms, and 1,200 C-UAS systems (Defense Daily, March 26).

Army Taps Three Vendors For Short Range Launched Effects Special User Demo

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.–The Army has selected three vendors to participate in a special user demonstration for its short range Launched Effects effort, an official confirmed Wednesday.

Brig. Gen. Cain Baker, director of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, said the vendors will provide air vehicles and payloads for the prototyping effort, which is expected to inform the Army’s roadmap for eventually procuring and fielding such capabilities.

DAGOR vehicle launches an Air Launched Effect-Small drone at Army’s EDGE21 demonstration at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Photo: Army’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team.

An Army spokesperson told Defense Daily it could not disclose the vendors selected to participate, with an announcement expected to be made soon.

“We’ll take that out to a formation here this year. [We’ll] place it in the hands of a fires element, a combat aviation brigade element and a [Special Operations Forces] element, to put that inside their formations, one, to get soldier user feedback. The other piece [of that] is within staff, in the formation how they will use, which will then drive a lot of our doctrine and our training,” Baker said at the AUSA’s Global Force Symposium here.

Launched Effects is the Army’s program to field new autonomous air vehicles that can be launched from aircraft or ground platforms with a variety of payloads and mission system applications to provide a range of effects for reconnaissance, extended communications links and eventually lethal capabilities.

Army officials, including Baker, detailed plans a year ago to pursue rapid prototyping and eventual production for short, medium and long-range Launched Effects capabilities (Defense Daily, March 27 2024).

Baker first mentioned plans in September for a “special user demonstration” for its Launched Effects program, which will involve providing prototype capabilities to multiple formations for use over the next year to gather feedback and inform next steps (Defense Daily, Sept. 4 2024).

“We will actually take Launched Effects into multiple formations over the next year and leave it with them. And I’m talking [about] not only the vehicles [but also] the software, the command and control device and the payloads. So they’ll now have that for an extended period of time so they can have it for home station training and for individual and collective [training]. We’ll take that feedback and we’ll drive the program from there,” Baker said at the time.

With the Army planning to emphasize autonomy as it expands its Transforming in Contact (TiC) rapid fielding initiative, Baker told Defense Daily on Tuesday that the short range LE solutions selected for the special user demo will also participate with “a portion of TiC.”

“With the success of this [effort], we’ll hopefully spring off of that to actually expand it across all of the TiC capabilities,” he said.

The Army has previously said that payload configurations for potential short range LE systems may include Electro-Optical/Infra-Red, Radio Frequency Detect, Identify, Locate, Report, lethal/kinetic, communications relay, and RF Decoy systems (Defense Daily, Jan. 2 2024).

Electric Boat Nabs $1 Billion Contract Mod For Virginia Block VI Sub Material

General Dynamics’ [GD] Electric Boat won another undefinitized contract modification worth up to $1.065 billion for the long lead time material for Block VI Virginia-class attack submarines.

Previously, in August 2024 Electric Boat won a modification worth up to $1.3 billion for economic ordering quantity material to support Block VI boats and to commit to a healthy submarine industrial base (Defense Daily, Aug. 5, 2024).

Then last October Electric Boat won another $2 billion in four contracts for submarine industrial base support, including up to $350 million for long lead time material for Block VI boats (Defense Daily, Oct. 9, 2024).

“This contract modification drives continuation of the crucial demand signal that the submarine industrial base needs to invest in the capacity and materials required to increase production volume,” Mark Rayha, president of Electric Boat, said in a statement. “Consistent funding for the supply base is essential to achieve the high-rate production the Navy requires of the entire submarine enterprise.”

The Block VI boats are being procured in a multiyear contract that lasts from FY 2024 to 2028, after the 10 Block V hull order ended in FY 2023. Block VI will be the second increment, after Block V submarines, to feature the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) that adds four large diameter payload tubes in the middle section. The VPM will make each submarine capable of fielding up to 28 Tomahawk missiles.

In 2020, a Navy official said the Block VI submarines are planned to continue moving the Navy forward to field improvements that will ultimately serve as the backbone of the next-generation SSN(X) attack submarines, including acoustic superiority, improved stealth, sonar performance and sensing and interacting with the water column and seafloor (Defense Daily, Nov. 20, 2020).

Qatar In Line For Potential $2 Billion FMS Deal For MQ-9s, Munitions, Other Equipment

The State Department on Wednesday said it approved a potential $2 billion foreign military sale (FMS) to Qatar that includes eight MQ-9B remotely piloted aircraft, missiles, radars, and other sensors.

The MQ-9B SkyGuardian unmanned aircraft are supplied by General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems business.

The proposed deal also includes 200 Boeing [BA] KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits for Guided Bomb Unit (GBU)-38s or Laser JDAM GBU-54s. Qatar also wants 300 BLU-111 500-pound general purpose bombs, 110 AGM-1142R Hellfire II missiles, 100 each of MXU-650 air foil groups and MAU-169 computer control groups for Lockheed Martin [LMT] Paveway II GBU-12 laser-guided bombs, 10 General Atomics Lynx AN/APY-8 synthetic aperture radars, 10 L3Harris Technologies [LHX] Rio Grande communications intelligence suites, and Honeywell [HON] TPE-331 turboprop engines.

Other equipment that would be part of the FMS includes embedded GPS/inertial navigation system security devices with M-Code, EGI security devices with Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Modules, M299 Longbow Hellfire launchers, fuze systems, laser illuminated target detectors, IFF transponders, and a slew of other electronic equipment.

In addition to General Atomics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris, other principal contractors on the deal include RTX [RTX], and Italy’s Leonardo, the State Department said.

“The proposed sale will improve Qatar’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing timely intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, target acquisition, counter-land, and counter-surface sea capabilities for its security and defense,” the State Department said. “This capability is a deterrent to regional threats and will primarily be used to strengthen its homeland defense.”

ULA Vulcan Rocket Now Certified for US National Security Missions

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket is now certified for U.S. national security missions after receiving certification from the U.S. Space Force.

Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Assured Access to Space organization announced the certification on Wednesday for National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions. ULA is now eligible to launch NSSL missions as one of two certified providers, the other being SpaceX.

ULA is a joint venture between Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT].

The first two Vulcan launches, which took place in January 2024 and October 2024, were part of the certification process. The Vulcan rocket experienced a nozzle anomaly on the second mission, but it did not impact orbital insertion. The certification process included 52 criteria including more than 180 discrete tasks, 60 payload interface requirement verifications, 18 subsystem design and test reviews, and 114 hardware and software audits.

“Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, said in a release. “Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency, and flexibility needed by our nation’s most critical space-based systems.”

Both ULA and SpaceX have provided launch services to the government under SSC’s NSSL program. In October, SpaceX received the first task orders under Phase 3 Lane 1 of the NSSL program, worth $734 million. SSC is expected to announce more awards for Phase 3, Lane 1 this spring. Blue Origin is also eligible to compete for task orders in Phase 3, Lane 1, but the New Glenn rocket does not have NSSL certification yet.

“Vulcan is uniquely designed to meet the challenging requirements demanded by an expanding spectrum of missions for U.S. national security space launches,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno commented in a release. “Moreover, this next-generation rocket provides high performance and extreme accuracy while continuing to deliver to our customer’s most challenging and exotic orbits.”

This certification comes later than ULA originally projected. Before the second Vulcan launch, Bruno said ULA would launch two more Vulcan missions for the Space Force before the end of 2024.

This article was first published by Via Satellite.

Space Force Warfighting Strategy Coming Soon

The U.S. Space Force will soon release a strategy outlining its framework for attaining space superiority and to give operational planners a common playbook, the service’s top uniformed official said on Wednesday.

The strategy will not contain anything new for “those of us that have been kind of working in the margins of this for a while” but it will create a “common vocabulary” and “common terms of reference,” and lay out how to achieve space superiority, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute. It will not be a “grand” strategy, he said.

As it develops a culture built around space superiority and space as a warfighting domain, the Space Force has to understand the related operational concepts, such as battle management, Saltzman said. This is important for operators and planners, he said.

Stood up in 2019, the Space Force is focusing on being able to fight and win in space as U.S. adversaries work to develop capabilities aimed at denying the country’s advantages in space. The strategy will lay out the targets on the ground, in space, and related networks that have to be part of operational planning, Saltzman said.

Saltzman highlighted how at the outset of the Russo-Ukraine war Russia used a ground-focused cyber-attack to degrade a satellite communications network operated by Viasat [VSAT].

“We have to be ready to protect and think about space superiority in all of those dimensions,” he said. “And so, what the what the framework does is it lays those out, it defines our terms, so that planners, and this is space planners, but this is [also] joint planners to make sure that our capabilities are accounted for and integrated fully into all the operational design. We felt like we owed the joint force that set of framework, that set of definitions, so that we could have the right kinds of discussions.”

Saltzman and his fellow Guardians have been vocal about the need for the Space Force’s budget to grow at a faster rate than the incremental annual increases common throughout the Defense Department in the face of rapidly evolving threats in the space domain. Without a “step function” in its budget, 3 to 4 percent annual increases will not buy new capability, just enable the service to be “treading water,” he said in response to a question about an ongoing DoD review to reprioritize up to 8 percent from low priority needs in favor of high priority programs.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the space domain is the most important in modern warfare, which Saltzman said gives him confidence about the reprioritization underway for the fiscal year 2026 budget in development. The service is assessing what its lower and higher priority programs as a “planning drill” but is not making any decisions for the moment, as this will be Hegseth’s “decision space,” he said.

“And so, I’m hopeful that the Space Force won’t take any cuts,” Saltzman said. “I certainly don’t want to talk about potential cuts that may not happen, because we want to keep everything we’ve got. We believe that the things we have are still necessary to modern warfare. They’re still necessary to support the joint force, but we just have to grow and add additional priorities.”

Saltzman did lament the continuing resolution (CR) that the federal government will operate under for funding the rest of fiscal year 2025. The resolution leaves the Space Force with less funding in FY ’25 than it had in FY ’24, “so we are literally shrinking in resources,” he said.

This means the Space Force will be on the same baseline budget for two years, and if there is a CR to start off FY ’26, then it will be more than two years, which is “stagnant, and in the face of an adversary who is not stagnant, I’m worried that we’re not going to be able to keep pace, certainly the way we want to,” Saltzman said.

Portuguese Air Force Analyzing Options for F-16 Replacement

LISBON, Portugal–While the Portuguese defense minister recently downplayed the Lockheed Martin

[LMT] F-35 fighter as a candidate to replace the country’s 28 F-16s, the F-35 may still be in the running.

The Portuguese Air Force’s Vision 5.3 last year “links with technology and fifth generation fighters, and dot 3 comes from people, processes, and technology,” Portuguese Air Force Maj. Gen. Joao Nogueira, director of weapons system maintenance, told reporters here.

Portugal has been a member of the European partnership on F-16s and the NATO Multi-National Fighter Program with Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Norway, and the United States to share F-16 upgrade costs and configurations.

“A stamp that is glued with F-35 relates with fifth generation, and that is a glue and an important step that, of course, we need to look to because all the countries that were with us in the F-16 group shifted to the F-35 solution,” Nogueira said on Wednesday. “Saying that is not saying that we are not looking to other options because we need to analyze what the other ones can do or cannot do…There are pro’s and con’s that we need to put in our analysis and put to the politicians all the information they need to get in order to take those decisions that are not easy ones, impact a lot the future of the Air Force, and, of course, involve a substantial amount of money also.”

Alternatives for Portugal other than the F-35 include Dassault‘s Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon, and the Saab JAS-39 Gripen.

The airframe of Portugal’s F-16M “is aging so we have to perform more repairs, more replacements of some parts–also, on the avionics side because the repairs we have to perform we have less options in the market to be so fast in changing a specific LRU or addressing some unscheduled repairs,” Nogueira said on Wednesday. “So we are having less solutions to be with the same level of readiness that we aim to.”

For the future, the Portuguese Air Force is considering what fighter will serve the country and NATO best into the 2030s, he said.

This month, Portugal Defense Minister Nuno Melo said that Portugal is unlikely to buy the F-35 despite the Portuguese Air Force recommending the fighter as the prime candidate to replace the country’s F-16s (Defense Daily, March 20).

“We cannot ignore the geopolitical environment in our choices,” Melo said. “The recent position of the United States, in the context of NATO…must make us think about the best options, because the predictability of our allies is a greater asset to take into account.” Melo said that Portugal is concerned that the U.S. “could bring limitations to use, maintenance, components, and everything that has to do with ensuring that aircraft will be operational and used in all types of scenarios.”

A week after Melo’s comments, Rasmus Jarlov, the chairman of the Danish Parliament’s defense committee, advised NATO countries to avoid the buy of U.S. military equipment, including the F-35.

White House Picks Heritage Naval Analyst To Lead MARAD

The White House nominated Brent Sadler, a naval analyst at the Heritage Foundation, to be the administrator for the Transportation Department’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) on March 24, according to Senate notice this week.

The administration did not announce the nomination before this public publication. The nomination was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which oversees the Department of Transportation.

Brent Sadler, senior research fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the Heritage Foundation and the Trump White House March 2025 pick to lead the Maritime Administration (MARAD). (Photo: Heritage Foundation)

If confirmed, Sadler would succeed Ann Phillips, who resigned earlier this year after serving since 2022.

Sadler has served as a senior research fellow for naval warfare and advanced technology at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank since 2020.

He served in the Navy for 26 years, reaching the rank of captain. His Heritage biography lists experience establishing the Navy Asia Pacific Advisory group in 2011 to inform the Chief of Naval Operations, serving in several positions at Pacific Command from 2012-2015, on the CNO’s personal staff in 2015-2016, as a senior defense official and defense and naval attache in Malaysia and finishing his career assigned to the China Branch of the Navy Staff at the Pentagon.

MARAD oversees the U.S. Merchant Marine and Sadler, if confirmed, would join as the Trump administration considers major changes to the maritime industry. MARAD also maintains the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NRDF) and its Ready Reserve Force (RRF) as a force to support deploying U.S. military forces and supplies when needed.

During a joint address to Congress earlier this month, Trump announced the creation of a new office of shipbuilding that will offer special tax incentives to industry for more domestic shipbuilding.

In a February report, the Government Accountability Office said that while the agency’s budget grew over 300 percent from 2015 to 2024, as of September 2024, it has a 12.3 percent vacancy rate, equivalent to 116 out of 941 full-time positions. The report also noted MARAD separated 235 more employees than it hired over the past decade, making it “increasingly difficult for the staff to accomplish their mission.”

The report also found MARAD did not fully implement key strategic workforce planning principles into its strategic workforce plan.